The Architecture of the Home

I can spend hours staring at pictures of places I’ve never been. I can study the way the sunlight gleams on hundreds of windows on a skyscraper, the way the light streams through the stained glass in an old cathedral, can envision the stillness and the musty stench in an abandoned mansion. 

Which structures have I been in that actually affect me in the ways these far-flung places do? In my own home, I pass through, unaware. Sometimes I feel fleeting dissatisfaction. There’s an awareness of colors and textures. But do I see the geometry? The lines of the structure? Do I acknowledge the house’s ability to contain those I love and my belongings, or the way it holds up in the elements and keeps me safe? Will I miss it when I leave? What will I miss?

We bought at the height of the housing boom—it was a frantic and decisive purchase. Every place we loved was snatched up before we even finished making an offer. Our house purchase was serendipitous, though: its low price was the only thing that saved us when the market crashed. I know this, and I’m glad, but I still find emotions like dissatisfaction and betrayal when I stare at my neighbor’s weeds out the kitchen window, or battle bug infestations because of the guy behind us. 

Improvements have helped, of course, and I spend most of my free time in my home. I miss it when I’m gone too long, but the missing seems mostly related to my bed or the privacy that allows me to unabashedly roam without pants. 

My house is sturdy and contains us without prejudice. Perhaps the beauty of the structure lies in the things you cannot see: the love, the memories, the happiness. Even the sadness and the loss—those are the materials that shape a structure and make it something beyond art. Yet it is also a medium for art, for the lives we build in those places are creations, collaboratively made and thanks to the places we linger in.